Vyapam Scam: Billionaire funded BJP and RSS leaders

Bhopal: A mining magnet has been arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Police on charges of being a prime player in the Vyapam or jobs scandal in Madhya Pradesh. He is accused of paying for the air tickets and other undefined expenses of top leaders of the BJP and its ideological parent, the RSS, The statement has been made by the income tax report from 2013. That report was not pursued by state police investigators who were handling the Vyapam inquiry till this week, when the CBI took over.

“We are not shielding anyone. But let’s not go by one odd report… let’s wait for the CBI investigation,” said the BJP’s Shaina NC to NDTV.The document from 2013 said Sudhir Sharma, whose vast business empire includes mines and colleges, had made “huge payments in cash for air tickets, travel bills, etc” for a group of politicians including Suresh Soni of the RSS and Prabhat Jha, then state president of the BJP.

The report was based on diaries recovered in raids on Sudhir Sharma and said the billionaire made “payments for travel arrangements of important political personalities” like Laxmikant Sharma, former Mining and Education Minister in Madhya Pradesh and Dharmendra Pradhan, now a union minister; Congress state legislator Veer Singh Bhuria, the report said, received “regular payments” from Sudhir Sharma. “All those who are guilty should be punished,” said Tom Vaddakan of his party.

The Vyapam scam is based on bribes paid for the blatant and wide-spread manipulation of recruitment exams for government jobs and state colleges. After six months of dodging arrest, Sudhir Sharma was jailed in July 2014, a month after former minister Laxmikant Sharma, whom he served as an aide in the early 2000s.